


Make You Better

by orphan_account



Series: Lullabye [19]
Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kidfic, M/M, ageshifting, here i go again, not ageplay, patrick is tinie, read part one and the rest is standalone after u read that, suspended disbelief, with the 50k vague tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 19:51:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6128239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patrick's sick, Chicago weather is even worse than usually and Pete's still sickeningly in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make You Better

**Author's Note:**

  * For [destroyer-of-muffins](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=destroyer-of-muffins).



> From some prompts I got a while ago from destroyer-of-muffins and insert-creative-name-here. Sorry I haven't updated like all week - I don't really have a better excuse than laziness. to make up for my slowness, i'm taking requests on my ao3 blog saverockandsoulpvnk.tumblr.com for short lil things in this verse or anything else really i mean,, i love all sorts and i'll write u a couple of paragraphs of anything peterick. long requests are closed until i catch up on prompts but if u get bored of waiting for me head over there and beg for a snippet or prompt me for a shorter thing? love you as always :)

Pete had been awake for the past twenty hours. He'd awoken at four in the morning to wind and hail beating on the windows and rattling them, been unable to get back to sleep, and stayed in bed watching his boyfriend sleep for a while until it got creepy, wiping his fever-sweaty brow every few minutes.

After he ran out of tissues, he went to the kitchen for coffee and more tissues. This lead to a few minutes of restless pacing, after which his coffee was cold and he had to make more, and when he went back into the bedroom Patrick was still sleeping, but small.

He'd slept through it a lot recently, Pete didn't know if he should be worried or if Patrick was just more comfortable now, but he always used to wake Pete up slipping back into bed. Nowadays, he usually just slept through it in one of Pete's shirts: small enough not to slip off his tiny frame and swamp him because Pete's shirts were stupidly tight; big enough not to asphyxiate Patrick on the return journey; also, really cute on both.

It always made his breathing snufflier, being small, and whatever version of the flu he was sporting didn't help with Pete's chances of ever sleeping again. He pressed another kiss to Patrick's eyebrow and murmured, "Are you awake?" The reply was ambiguous enough - Patrick wriggling and curling up a little tighter - that Pete let his hand linger in Patrick's hair and when there was still no response, combed his fingers through the sweaty mass and whispered, "if you are, I'm just going to play video games so don't freak out that I'm gone."

  
***

At some point after Pete decamped to the living/TV room, with its assortment of gaming equipment, and light started to pour through the gaps in the curtains, Patrick and Pumpkin appeared. Patrick clambered into Pete's lap, so half asleep that he did it on autopilot with a glazed expression, and accidentally whacked Pete in the face with one of Pumpkin's paws.

Pete watched his almost-high-score go out of the window at the distraction and groaned loudly.  
"Morning, or afternoon I guess, Please-can-I swear-this-one-time-because-you-really-deserve-it?"  
"I think," Patrick replied, not looking and sounding very conscious at all, "It's not good for, like, the hierarchy of our relationship that you're always asking me for permission."

Note to self, check Patrick's brow, Pete thought: some people handled fever with hallucinations and pained noises, Patrick's modus operandi was using words bigger than him and walking around like he was dreaming.

"I guess so," Pete nervously agreed. Patrick just breathed a contented "Mmm," and fell asleep with his arms around Pete's waist and his body... right in the way of the TV.

"Thanks, Ricky. Dick," he added, somehow unsurprised when Patrick's sleeping face contorted and his hands constricted in the vague gesture of a pinch.

With little other choice, he fell back against the chair and tried to let Patrick's heavy breathing lull him back to sleep himself.  
It half-worked, but Patrick kept murmuring in his sleep and sometimes he whined and wriggled and Pete got a kick to the shins and started awake, maternal instincts blazing.

Pete checked his temperature and it was definitely hotter than it should be, but there wasn't a lot he could do without Google or the ability to move. Figuring it was best just to let Patrick sleep, he sighed and fell back again with one hand casually ruffling through Patrick's hair.

***

For the third time that day, Pete awoke to hoarse coughing and looked around blearily. The source, still curled in his lap, was Patrick, and he looked like he'd woken himself up too, startled and blurry-eyed looking.  
"Are you," Pete coughed to clear his throat, "Are you okay, little dude?"

Alarm bells rang when Patrick moaned and shook his head. After another round of diaphragm wracking coughs, he pitched forward and wrapped his arms around Pete's waist, whimpering.  
"Oh dear. You gotta describe me what's wrong, okay?"  
Obligatory groan of protest out of the way, Patrick shuffled further up and took a deep breath.

"My lungs feel all full and I feel all sicky and bleughhh, also my head hurts and I'm hothothot and my throat is burning and my nose is all runny, ew," he explained hoarsely.  
"Yikes that's- oh my god, Ricky, look out the window, it's snowing!"  
The fact that Patrick didn't turn his head was worrying. Kids, even ones who grew up in Chicago, loved snow. Of this, Pete was certain.

"Look, baby, everything's super white and awesome," he tried desperately to peak Patrick's interest. Patrick coughed so hard he gagged a few times and Pete immediately clutched onto him worriedly and held him until he was done.

"Okay, I guess you don't care. Listen, though, love, will you get off me? Then I can go google what's wrong with you and we can get some medicine or whatever."  
Shrugging, Patrick allowed himself to tumble to the floor and land unsteadily on his feet. Not trusting his balance, Pete put a hand on the small of his back and supported him as they toddled sleepily to Pete's room.

***

"Thanks, Google," Pete groaned, covering the screen from Patrick's view. Any one of some two hundred illnesses matched Patrick's current symptoms, and some of them were serious, scary shit he didn't want Patrick to see.  
Watching the mug of tea he carried with careful intensity, Patrick hopped up beside Pete onto his chair, padded with cushions so he could properly reach the kitchen table.

"So, I don't have a clue what's wrong with you, but I can give you paracetamol or something for the fever and the pain? Ugh, it says I shouldn't 'cause you're a kid. Do we still have that kid one I bought? The liquid one because you hate pills." Patrick looked guilty and Pete had to prepare himself for the worst.

"Okay, so like, don't get mad though," he snuffled sadly, making himself appear as ill as possible in order to avoid Pete's wrath, "But like a couple of days ago I was looking in the bathroom cabinet for - um!"

Blush rose high in Patrick's cheeks and his eyes were huge with mortification. Cringing, Pete tried not to snigger and made an embarrassed, apologetic noise instead.  
"Grown up things," Patrick recovered, "Um, and I might've knocked off some things and smashed them. Like, specifically the kid painkiller stuff? And I just cleaned up and didn't tell you but now you're probably going to get mad at me because you hate when I don't tell you stuff."

"Hey, I won't get mad, I just wish you'd tell me when things happen. I just need to run to the store and get more."  
Patrick chose that moment to double over with a groan of pain, and Pete chose it to look out of the window at the rapidly brewing blizzard.

"Okay, I might get a bit mad, because I have to go out in that."

***

The nearest pharmacy was only a few minutes in the car, but the weather had graduated to full blown snowstorm and going out in it was sort of a terrifying prospect.  
Pete settled Patrick in their bedroom with a book, paper and pencils, and importantly his phone and said 'call me if anything happens' about a million times.

With Patrick drowned in goodbye kisses like he was going to be gone more than ten minutes, Pete pulled on more hoodies than were meant to be worn at once, dashed to the car and popped more Ativan than were meant to be taken at once - cringing at another memory of a car and too much Ativan - and tried not to swerve off the road with all the ice.

He felt shaky and barely-there as he paid for five different kinds of child friendly flu medicines and painkillers and flashed the lady an empty smile.  
"Ricky?" he said into his cell once he was on his way back through the parking lot. "I've got everything and I'll be home soon, okay? Like, ten minutes tops."

"'Kay! Don't worry about me, I'm fine. See you soon, Petey!"

***

Patrick had re-iterated his fineness multiple times but when Pete opened their bedroom door and crept in, Patrick squeaked and leapt on Pete for a hug.  
"Miss me, huh?" Pete teased, feeling distinctly... blurry.

"Mm. You look cold. We should make cocoa," Patrick decided, snuffling feebly.  
"And by we, you mean me?"

But he picked Patrick up regardless, holding him awkwardly on his hip while he clattered around in the cupboard for mugs. Pete was trying to remember if he'd gone over the suggested dose of his anxiety medication, when he decided that he urgently needed to put Patrick down.

As if some kind of protective reflex didn't allow Pete to go unconscious until Patrick was safe, he passed out the second Patrick's feet hit the floor.

***

When Pete came to, he couldn't see anything, and gradually became more certain that here, right now, he was dead, and death was nothing like his grand and vivid proclaims ruins and more like floating in an endless nowhere until time ran out.

Then Patrick's face appeared, illuminated in yellow light from a flashlight. "Power's out," he informed Pete grimly. "I found this in the drawers in the hall."  
His speech was casual but he was shaking and Pete knew Patrick was almost as terrified of the dark when he was small as Pete.

"Hey," he croaked, sitting up, "Hey, woah. It's okay. All right, come here."  
Patrick hadn't been able to move him since he fainted, so he was still spread uncomfortably on the tiled floor, and having Patrick's weight in his lap didn't make it better.

"I didn't want you to hit your head so I sort-of caught you so you didn't hit as hard."  
Pete grinned. "Thanks, baby. At least I'm not just a puddle of Pete on the floor right now, thanks to you."  
Patrick shuddered. "It's pretty scary, all the dark and I was scared about you as well and-"

"Yeah, me too. It's all good now, and I'm fine and the electricity will be back soon, probably. In the meantime, we could totally make a blanket fort. It's kind of like, our duty as people in a powercut."

Patrick's arms around Pete's neck agreed to this statement as they hauled themselves up and Pete carried Patrick to the living room. "You should probably walk, though, I'm still feeling kind of funny." He didn't want to admit that the reason was because he'd taken a ton of Ativan to counteract his terror about going out in the storm, because then Patrick would blame himself, so he just shrugged off Patrick's murmur of complaint and set him down carefully.

"Okay, so how are we doing this?" By the time Pete blinked, Patrick was behind him with a huge pile of blankets and cushions. They got to work; Patrick setting the comfy things all over the site of their fort and Pete pushing the couch across the room so it could provide the wall. From the floor, Patrick complained, "Push harder! You're slow slow sloooooow," and Pete resisted the urge to point out that Patrick was now just laying amongst the pillows and breathing loudly. He'd even taken control of the flashlight, so Pete could barely see.

"Does this please you, princess Patrick?" He bowed mockingly, collapsing in the pillows next to Patrick, once the couch was positioned. Patrick's frown deepened.  
"Sure, but you still gotta do the blanket. Move it! Gosh, you're so lazy," he crowed, actually lying back with his head pillows on his hands and sighing as Pete got back to work.

"Well, I'm glad you're getting exercise at least," Pete smirked as he poked Patrick in the stomach and watched him curl up like an alarmed pillbug.  
"Petey, don't-"  
"For god's sake, love, don't do this again. I love your squishy tummy," Pete crooned, proceeding to smush his face up in it and blow a loud raspberry.

He tickled Patrick until he was rolling around laughing and swatting Pete's hands away. Once he gave in, defenceless, Pete planted a million kisses across it, murmuring sweet nothings into the softness there while Patrick alternated between enraptured and affronted. When he finally managed to kick Pete away his mouth was in the displeased downturn it pulled itself into when Pete showed him too much affection, big or small, but his eyes were smiling in a way that he couldn't hide.

"You're annoying, but you're pretty nice," he said decisively, while Pete just sighed lovingly and beamed at his tiny little boyfriend.  
"Yup, and you're pretty and nice."  
Having Patrick back on his lap made manoeuvring the final piece of the pillow fort into place kind of tricky, but they managed it together even though Patrick's only real contribution was an army of sloppy kisses across Pete's face and neck.

"We should cuddle," Patrick suggested. "Like, for safety and warmth."  
"I only cuddle for love," Pete retaliated, yanking Patrick down into the mass off pillows and blankets and not thinking about all the one hundred and one contagious diseases he might catch from Patrick.


End file.
